1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed generally toward a method and apparatus for monitoring and reducing power consumption and heat output for embedded IO processors.
2. Description of the Related Art
A major concern in server applications is the heat output of a particular server component. Server requirements are constantly changing and demanding faster input/output (IO) controllers to perform IO operations. Some controllers address this need by making a single integrated circuit (IC) that contains multiple embedded processors that run in parallel. All these processors with increasing clock frequencies in a single IC increases the overall power consumption of the IC. The controllers are designed to process more than 100,000 IO requests a second.
Typically, this type of performance is not needed and the server is running at full speed just to process a small amount of IO requests. Even under heavy load, meaning the controller has many IO requests to process at once, the power consumption and heat output of the controller may become too high. These higher temperatures require larger heat syncs and more airflow through the server. This results in rack mount servers that cannot be as tightly packed as one may hope because they must accommodate larger heat syncs or air conditioning systems. Furthermore, energy bills may increase due to the excessive power consumption by controllers, as well as cooling systems. Thus, the user suffers increased costs as well.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to provide improved power monitoring and reduction for embedded IO processors.